Those who craft public policies in America are headed toward a new and uncomfortable debate: whether steadily declining birthrates mean the government should provide incentives specifically to encourage having more children.
There’s already a well-established and increasingly bipartisan impulse to create policies to make life easier for families once they have children. Child tax credits, government-funded preschool programs, removal of marriage penalties from the tax code—all are designed to make life easier for younger parents and their families.
Shannon Osaka, The Washington Post
Madison Colombo, Fox News
Lyman Stone, Peter Foreshaw Brookes, The Critic
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Does Having Children Make People Happier in the Long Run?
What Three Identical Strangers Reveals About Nature and Nurture
Baby Bust: Fertility is Declining the Most Among Minority Women
Measuring the Long-Term Effects of Early, Extensive Day Care
Weekly roundup of research, commentary, and insights changing the national conversation on the family.
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© 2026 Institute for Family Studies
© 2026 Institute for Family Studies
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